Self-employed workers: A comparison group for organizational psychology

By neglecting self-employed workers, organizational psychology has deprived itself of a potentially useful comparison group for the purposes of ascertaining the effects of work organizations on their members and of investigating the effects of particular organizational variables. Reasons for this neglect are discussed and examples of studies that would have been strengthened by the inclusion of a sample of self-employed workers as a comparison group are cited. The review of research on the self-employed includes studies in the areas of bureaucratization and professionalization, demography and economic behavior, mobility, social class, political behavior, and job satisfaction and mental health. No study of the job satisfaction of self-employed workers was found. Special attention is given to research employing the comparison of self-employed and wage-and-salary workers. It is concluded that due to lack of controls, little can be learned from available research findings about the effects of organizational membership on individual workers. Nonetheless, controlled use of this member-nonmember comparison appears promising as a means of assessing the effects of organizations on their members.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/33906/1/0000171.pd

IMPACT OF TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP ON FOLLOWER DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE: A FIELD EXPERIMENT

In a longitudinal, randomized field experiment, we tested the impact of transformational leadership, enhanced hy training, on follower development and performance. Experimental group leaders received transformational leadership training, and control group leaders, eclectic leadership training. The sample included 54 military leaders, their 90 direct followers, and 724 indirect followers. Results indicated the leaders in the experimental group had a more positive impact on direct followers\u27 development and on indirect followers\u27 performance than did the leaders in the control group

Job stress, cigarette smoking and cessation: The conditioning effects of peer support

Relationships between questionnaire measures of job stress and smoking intensity (SI) and cessation were studied among 560 disease-free smoking males and 310 quitters all members of 22 kibbutzim. The main-effect hypothesis that stress is positively related to SI and negatively to cessation received some support in correlational and multiple regression analyses for the entire sample. Hours of work, work addiction, lack of influence, intrinsic impoverishment and lack support were positively associated with SI. Conflict, responsibility, hours of work, low status, lack of influence and harsh working conditions were negatively associated with cessation. When peer support was dichotomized into low and high, we found that persons reporting low support smoked significantly more than those who reported high support. Seeking effects of both hours of work and support on SI, we found additive main effects but no interaction effect. The average number of cigarettes smoked by people who worked less than 8 hours and reported high support was 17, whereas people who worked more than 8 hours and reported low support smoked an average of 22 cigarettes a day. The buffering effect of support on the relationship between stress and both SI and cessation of smoking was examined by means of interaction analysis. No buffer effect was evident for SI. However, for respondents reporting low support more job stressors were negatively related to cessation than among those reporting high support, confirming the support-buffer hypothesis that social support may be measurement of support are discussed. We conclude with the hypothesis that social support may be detrimental to the smoker, depending on the smoking attitudes and behaviors of the 'supportive' others.

Sabbatical leave:who gains and how much?

A rigorous quasi-experiment tested the ameliorative effects of a sabbatical leave, a special case of respite from routine work. We hypothesized that (a) respite increases resource level and well-being and (b) individual differences and respite features moderate respite effects. A sample of 129 faculty members on sabbatical and 129 matched controls completed measures of resource gain, resource loss, and well-being before, during, and after the sabbatical. Among the sabbatees, resource loss declined and resource gain and well-being rose during the sabbatical. The comparison group showed no change. Moderation analysis revealed that those who reported higher respite self-efficacy and greater control, were more detached, had a more positive sabbatical experience, and spent their sabbatical outside their home country enjoyed more enhanced well-being than others

Preaching, teaching and researching at the periphery: academic management literature in Turkey, 1970-1999

Internationally accessible academic literature in management has been dominated very largely by contributions originating from the United States (US). Although this state of imbalance has attracted some discussion, little systematic research exists on why a large majority of countries have limited presence in international scholarly outlets. To this end, we investigated the development of the management literature in Turkey over the last three decades, as a prototypical example of a country located at the periphery of management scholarship. Our study involved a content analysis of the management articles published in local and international academic journals authored by scholars affiliated with a Turkish university. Cluster analytic results indicated that scholarly activity in this peripheral context comprised a majority fraction producing practice-oriented, non-empirical output based on literature imported from primarily the US and a minority group adhering to an imported scientific model, involving only marginally greater attention to contextualization and a limited concern with informing practice. Further analysis indicated that the organizational heritage of the university in which scholarly activity was carried out was highly significant. Scholars working in American-modeled public and private universities were more likely to base their work on the scientific model imported wholesale from the US. The post-1980 change in the institutional regime geared towards bringing Turkish higher education closer to American models and driving international publications, however, did not appear to have altered the overall panorama of scholarly practice in management, at least over a period of 15 years